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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

a long walk

My cousin and her new husband (!) are here visiting us as they traverse through Europe on their honeymoon. It has been great having them. When we are ALL together, though- us, them, Sam and family- we are literally a small village. On Sunday afternoon/evening we walked out to the historic graveyard and shorefront here in St. Andrews. It was beautiful. You can walk quite far out on this wall that I guess was part of some structure at some point (i need to ask my brother about this). All of us walked all the way out, while worrying and fretting over the open sides of the wall and the drop to the sea. We all survived though!! Here are some shots of our day...
This is the graveyard. Love the old architecture.
Love how this one turned out
Walking out to the end of the wall...four of the people I love most in the world!
Cousin love
The view from the end of the wall....

Everett getting serious air

I just loved the look of this shot!

Everett looking VERY cool
Jayden climbing the ladder up the lookout
Owen with serious air!!
And Eleni too...love that she keeps up with her big brothers!!!
The artist at work...beautiful!!!
one last gorgeous view

Friday, August 27, 2010

late evening walk

The sun goes down really late here right now so we have been putting the boys to bed later and enjoying longer evenings.

Last night we went for a walk to the nearby hotel to see the petting zoo and then walked around our little town a bit.

First up, the animals.

checking out the animalschecking out the animals2

This is our little town, as seen from the bridge coming in.

Guardbridge

And views from either side of the bridge..

from the bridge

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There’s a park across the street from us with a bird estuary attached to it and it also overlooks the water.

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birdhouse

And because I know all you guys probably really care about are shots of the “wee ones”, you can now feast your eyes on these….

 Jayden boy      cutest eli  

Seriously…could they BE any cuter?

thankful

There are a lot of things I am thankful for here in Scotland, and in my life in general.

So, here are some, in no particular order!

- a great flat to live in while we're here, where the boys each have their own room
- a king bed to sleep in, which means I don't get elbowed in the head in the night anymore
- wonderful landlords who are super helpful
- beautiful scenery to make me thankful to our Creator daily
- wonderful parents who are supporting us greatly on this venture
- being in the same town as my brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece
- lots and lots of green space for the boys to run and play
-  Skype, which keeps us connected to home and keeps me sane
- the internet in general, without which I would most certainly lose my mind

And then there are things to be, um, not so thankful for. Two in particular

- the electricity here!!! it is so different and we have ruined too many things to even mention on here. GGRRRRR....
- apparently there are US DVDs and UK DVDs. this means our DVDs do not play on the UK DVD players. LAME. so the boys are watching everything either on our computers or on our portable DVD player (thanks, Mom and Dad!)

All in all, I am grateful for this opportunity, thankful to the people who are making it happen, and glad to be here!!! I just wish our stuff worked here!!!!!! :)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

beautiful Scotland

These are all just shots from our walk to the train and our train ride today!! AMAZING. We most definitely live out in the country and it is GORGEOUS. The amount of green space here is just incredible. I said to Dan yesterday, “I want to live here…but in California.” Hee hee. So check out the shots….

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beautiful Scotland2

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Scotland, entering week 2

So we FINALLY got our camera working. Our battery was dead upon arrival and then we’ve been fussing with the SUPER CRAZY electricity here…blowing out all sorts of stuff since we don’t have the right converters. We even blew out a converter! AARRGGG. So our camera battery charger needs a voltage converter which we are waiting on to arrive in the mail. So my wonderful brother gave us an extra one they have but apparently I am inept and thought it was charging the battery when it wasn’t!!! So…once my wonderful husband got ahold of it, we had a charged battery and working camera. As they would say here, BRILLIANT!!!

Today was also a fantastic day for the camera to start working!!! We had a few adventures!

First up was meeting up with a local friend, Kelly, and her son Connor who is Jayden’s age, at the park. The boys had  a fantastic time playing…

boys on merry go round

Then while we were at the park, our neighbors walked by, who have a sweet little 2 year old daughter, and asked us if we wanted to take the train into Cupar, a nearby town, and go to an indoor play area. Jayden has been DYING to ride the train so we of course said yes. Big smiles ensued. jayden on train

eli on train

We arrived in Cupar and commenced some serious playing…

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They also had a super tasty, kid-friendly little cafe so we had lunch!!

All of this wore them out quite a bit!!night night Eli

Well I guess wore Eli out, cause Jayden continued to enjoy our train adventure.

“Look that train track!!”

pointing at track

And more smiles for train time…Jayden smiling

We made it home , relaxed and then picked up dinner for “The Scotland 9” (us, Sam, Andrea, and the kids). Sam and fam are moving tomorrow so they were knee deep in packing and asked us to bring dinner. We happily obliged!!!

 

After that, we came home and the boys promptly collapsed into bed…

And I started blogging… :)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

some random shots

One of our family’s big fun, traditions for the past couple years is going to Souplantation! We wait for 2 for 1 coupons and off we go! So we had to have a final outing before we departed to Scotland.

Here’s Eli, expressing how we all feel about eating there. YUM!

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Some of my favorite people in all the world (minus Eli, of course!)

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This is a random shot of Eli from the week before we left. We thought it was so funny he was sitting there with his leg crossed…

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And here are a couple shots from the plane. Ways to keep a toddler entertained on a long flight:

1. feed them cookies and let them watch movie after movie after movie

jayden on plane

2. Play peek-a-boo with them over the seat!

eli on plane

And here are a few shots of St. Andrews

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standrews2

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I wanted this next one to be much cooler but my camera kind of freaked and then the battery died…so not quite the shot I wanted. But this church is BEAUTIFUL.

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There will be more shots to come, esp. since I finally got my camera battery charged today. Figuring out the electricity here has been one of my biggest challenges for sure!!

Love to you all, whoever is out there reading… :)

Saturday, August 21, 2010

our first pictures from Scotland!!

Ok so as promised here are a few pics. I didn't actually take them, my sister-in-law did. We went to the park today and she snapped these! Thanks, Sis!! :)



Eli and Everett are good buddies!!!

All 5 grandchildren/cousins together!! SO FUN

Jayden sliding at the "castle" park

Friday, August 20, 2010

in Scotland!!!

Wow wow wow, we are here in Scotland. Crazy crazy!!

The trip was definitely long, definitely hard but not as bad as I expected. What I expected to be the worse was our layover in London, which was in the middle of the night West Coast time. And it was! The boys were totally exhausted and cranky and generally uncooperative. But we finally boarded our last plane, that flight was quick, and we landed in Glasgow. We quickly met up with our taxi driver who drove us to our flat we are "letting." What was really amazing was as I was getting out of the taxi, I looked down the street and there were my brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece getting off the bus at the exact same moment. I almost just burst into tears at the sight of them!! They brought us groceries, and some toys for the boys. It was fantastic to see them!!

So the last couple days we have been settling in, running what feels like a million errands. We got cell phones, internet, etc. and have been exploring our new world.

I know, I know, there aren't any pictures in this post. I will get to it, I promise. I don't have many yet but I'm working on it!! Trust me, once I'm more recovered from the trip and jet lag, I'll be posting them like crazy.

We are thankful to be here, thankful for family close by, but definitely missing home too. The boys have been doing pretty well. They have been up in the night but generally go right back to sleep. They are adjusting to the time difference better than I am, I think!

Anyway, will post more soon.

YAY SCOTLAND!!!!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Time to celebrate!

I am ready to call this 3 year old boy right herejayden and dan

officially potty trained!! We are so proud of him as he has just taken this on with all sorts of gusto! He still doesn’t savor going to the bathroom in public but he’s doing it! Here’s hoping it stays that way once we’re on the plane and in Scotland!

Go Jayden! We are so proud of you, big boy!

Someone….

eli in boots

is ready for the Scotland rain!!! I guess someone should tell him he’ll need a little more than a diaper for cltohing, eh? :)

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Scotland Bound!!!

In 15 short days we will be on an airplane bound for Scotland. Well, our first plane will be Philadelphia bound, and then the next one London bound. And then, finally, our third will be Scotland bound. Glasgow, to be precise! This has just snuck up on us. I find myself verging on panic quite frequently- in regards to how much there is to do, in regards to leaving so much behind, in regards to thinking about somewhere so new. I think, for some reason, it really hit me yesterday that we’re going.  And as a result, I’m feeling emotional about everything. I even got sad at Trader Joe’s today.

Anyway…enough moping!!! Here are some recent pics of our sweet ones.  

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eli dirty

The above shot is of Eli after a roll in the dirt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite capture just how Pigpen-like he looked.

Here’s another attempt…DSC_2251

I’ll be back soon with pics of our trip to the Aquarium and I’m WAY late with Eli’s 2 year check up stats.